Hyperion Factor
by Technuma
Summary: Ash and Misty are told about rumored new pokemon species in a recently urbanized region called Chartreuse.
1. Default Chapter Title

By Yohann DeSabrais  
  
  
  
The Hyperion Factor  
  
Part 1: First Encounter  
  
  
The sky couldn`t possibly have been bluer that day, with barely a  
few puffy white clouds here and there, a gentle summer breeze   
pushing them along. Down on the ground, a little yellow pokemon  
looked up to the sky in contentment, smiling as he enjoyed the  
wind fluffing his short fur.  
  
"Piiiii... kaaaaa..." said Pikachu.  
  
Making his way through the wild grass, pokemon trainer Ash Ketchum  
joined the little electric mouse and sat besides him, sighing  
profoundly while reflecting back on the past few weeks.  
  
Pikachu looked at his trainer, saying nothing as he waited to see  
how to handle Ash`s mood that day.  
  
"I have to face it, Pikachu, I really messed things up for the two  
of us." said Ash in a glum tone.  
  
"Pikapi?" said Pikachu.  
  
"Yes, Pikachu, I can see now that there`s no point in blaming  
anyone. It was my own stupid idea to choose Charizard as my third  
pokemon in the fifth round, and we lost because of that. All our  
efforts laid to waste because I thought I could handle that loose  
cannon." apologized Ash.  
  
"Pi, Pika, chu!" said the little mouse, objecting his friend`s  
apologetic mea culpa.  
  
"It`s no use denying it, Pikachu, I screwed up. I thought I was the  
best trainer in the world, Richie just showed me what I loser I  
really am. I`m sorry." said Ash, turning his eyes away to avoid  
meeting the gaze of his tiny friend.  
  
Pikachu couldn`t hear anymore of this self-pity from Ash. Reaching  
out with his tiny hand, he touched his human master`s arm and  
released a mild amount of electrical current.  
  
"CHUUUUU!!!" he yelled as Ash reeled back in a stunned stupor,  
smoke billowing from his mouth as he laid on the ground.  
  
Pikachu blew the smoke off his finger just like he saw a sherif do  
with his gun in a movie a few weeks before. He was really tired of  
Ash beating himself up over his defeat, and figured that a little   
"shock therapy" might do him some good.  
  
"Yeow..." complained Ash as he got back up. "Thanks, I needed   
that." he said, his voice still a little shaky.  
  
"Kachu!" said the little pokemon, his smile returning.  
  
"Hey, there they are!" said a familiar voice, a young feminine  
figure making her way through the tall grass. Misty joined Ash  
and Pikachu, her little hatchling pokemon in her arms as always.  
  
"Togepi!!!" went the cute little pokemon who still wore part of  
his cracked shell as pseudo-clothes.  
  
"We heard the electrical shock all the way across the field." said  
Misty as she sat down with Ash and Pikachu, laying down Togepi on  
the ground.  
  
"Chu!" said Pikachu, running to the cute auburn girl and cuddling   
to her.  
  
"Why did you come here? I thought you said you were tired of   
hearing me whine." asked Ash.  
  
"I am. But your mom asked me to bring you this." she replied,  
reaching out in her jacket pocket and pulling out a calculator  
shaped miniature encyclopedia. "You forgot it this morning after  
you had breakfast. She insisted that you bring it along in case  
you met a new pokemon and wanted to record it in."  
  
Ash opened Dexter and checked at the high number of pokemon he`d  
tracked, but then closed it up right away.  
  
"Thanks, but I don`t think I`ll see any new ones today. I`ve roamed  
the surrounding area of pallet and seen just about every pokemon  
there is. There`s a few legendary pokemons I`ve never met, of   
course, but the odds of seeing them here are about as good as those  
of Team Rocket actually managing to steal something." said Ash,  
laughing a little as he did.  
  
"How are you feeling today, anyway?" she wondered.  
  
"Better, I guess. Funny how having a few hundred volts go through  
your spine can cram some sense in your head." replied Ash.  
  
Pikachu and Misty giggled at this last comment.  
  
"I`m supposed to meet professor Oak today. When I got up, I   
decided to cancel, but I`ve had time to think it through." he  
continued.  
  
"You`re going after all?" guessed Misty.  
  
"Yeah, I guess I am." said Ash, pocketing his pokedex and heading  
back to town. "Coming, Pikachu?"  
  
The little mouse hopped from Misty`s lap, running after Ash and  
jumping on his shoulder. Misty looked at him walking confidently,  
unsure if he`d really worked out all his confidence issues. She`d  
know soon enough, most likely. For some reason, trouble always   
seemed to follow Ash around no matter what he did. If he was his  
old self again, he`d easily make it through almost unscathed...  
unless he tried using Charizard again, that is. Then he`d get  
scorched in the process like the last time.  
  
"Gepi?" went the little hatchling creature.  
  
"Yeah, Togepi, I`m a little worried too." said Misty. She was   
honest when she said she cared about Ash, even more than anyone  
suspected... but she`d be damned if she let anyone find out.  
  
* * *  
  
Somewhere on a road between Pallet and Viridian, two teenagers and  
their pokemon ally tried to make some sense out of their travelling  
plans, without too much success.  
  
"I`m telling you that this map is outdated!" growled the girl with  
the red hair whose styling defied and the laws of both gravity and  
reality.  
  
"Is it my fault you spent so much on facial care products that I  
had to buy the cheapest one?" protested her friend whose short  
blue hair looked like it had received professional care just five  
minutes ago despite the amount of time he`d been walking around  
on the roads of the Viridian area.  
  
"Shut up you two, I can`t hear myself think." observed their feline  
pokemon, a Meowth with the unique abilities to walk and talk like  
a human being, skills he once taught himself out of love, those  
unrequited feelings further fueling his already strong resentment  
toward society in general.  
  
"Jessie, where are we supposed to go, anyway? I can`t find the   
place anywhere on this map!" said the teenage boy.  
  
"James, I told you before: Chartreuse Valley has been uninhabited   
until just recently, that`s why you`ll only find it on the most   
recent maps! Now the boss wants us to go there, so get your ass   
into gear!" ordered the girl  
  
"Yeah, these reports of unusually large pokemons over there make  
it sound like there`s a good haul to be had!" said Meowth.  
  
"That`s right, Meowth, we`ll get ourselves a bunch of rare pokemon  
to please the boss and show him how good we really are!" agreed  
Jessie.  
  
"We`ll make him proud of us yet!" said James, taking a dramatic  
pose before looking confused once again. "What direction is  
Chartreuse again???"  
  
Both Jessie and Meowth slapped their foreheads at once.  
  
* * *  
  
Deep inside his fortress mansion, Giovanni looked onto the  
television screens in his office, most of them picking up the  
various channels covering the Indigo Plateau championship. The  
competitions had crowned this year`s new champion already, and  
were seeing her efforts in trying to defeat the four league  
masters.  
  
This, however, bored the enigmatic leader of Team Rocket. With  
the push of a button, he switched his main viewscreen to the  
various spy surveillance camera systems he`d set up in various  
cities. Giovanni was a man with many devious plans in motion at  
once, and he wasn`t one to let any one of them fail by letting  
incompetent underlings go unsupervised.  
  
And speaking of incompetent...  
  
He pressed another button on the arm rest of his chair, and the  
main screen was activated into videophone mode.  
  
"Jessie, James, Meowth, are you there?" he said as he made a call  
to his field agents.  
  
"Yes boss, we`re here!" replied the red haired girl who took her  
softest, sweetest tone to adress her leader.  
  
"And we`re ready for action!" added James as he squeezed himself  
into the view range of the small cell phone they were using.  
  
"Hey, let the boss see me too!" squeeled a third voice offscreen.  
  
"Yes, Meowth, I know you`re there as well." acknowledged the  
hardened man, his expression refusing to show any emotion.  
  
"So what are our orders?" asked Jessie.  
  
"As you may have heard, rumors abound that a new pokemon specie  
has been seen in Chartreuse Valley. I want you two to find it, and  
bring it back to me." said Giovanni, petting the purring Persian  
who was asleep on his lap.  
  
"No sweat, it`s as good as caught!" assured James.  
  
"We`re on the case, boss!" said Meowth who suddenly climbed  
James` leg to be within sight of the cell phone, his cat face  
filling the whole of Giovanni`s viewscreen.  
  
"That`s what I`m afraid of..." mumbled Giovanni, sighing in despair  
as the communication link severed.  
  
* * *  
  
Arriving on Professor Oak`s compound, Ash and Misty were greeted by  
a small group of Nidorans, both males and females. The adorable  
little pokemons were busy playing in the wide open stretches of  
grassland surrounding the professor`s lab, having a good time in  
the warm sun.  
  
"They certainly look happy here." observed Ash.  
  
"Of course they are, professor Oak takes such good care of them!"  
replied Misty who hoped she`d get a chance to drop by the pond  
where the professor kept the water pokemon left in his care.  
  
"Pika!" said Pikachu as he saw a small group of electric mice  
running around a few yards away at the edge of a small wooded  
area.  
  
"Wanna go have some fun with them for a little while, Pikachu?"  
  
"PIKA PIKA!" he replied, hopping off Ash`s shoulder and joining  
with the other pokemons of his kind.  
  
"It`s been a long time since he`s been here with other Pikachus,  
hasn`t it?" asked Misty, looking at her small electric friend as  
he ran to the woods.  
  
"It certainly has... I can hardly believe he and I have been  
together for over a year now."  
  
"I know the feeling, Ash. It`s been two years now since I caught  
my first Staryu, and he`s been a Starmie for a year now. That  
reminds me, I better drop by Cerulean to pick him up soon, and  
let my Staryu have a little exercise too!" said Misty as she   
handed Togepi to Ash for a few moments, taking a pokeball from  
her pocket to unleash her starfish pokemon.  
  
"Staryu, come out to play for a while!" she said, a red beam  
shooting out of the ball and releasing the pokemon inside...  
which instead turned out to be a short, stubby and confused  
looking duck.  
  
"Psy?" he went.  
  
"PSYDUCK?!? Why do I ALWAYS take YOUR pokeball out of my pocket  
when I want my other pokemons???" she whined.  
  
Ash could hardly contain his laughter.  
  
"I think he likes you, Misty." he observed.  
  
She silently replied by bashing him behind the head with the  
empty pokeball.  
  
"Oh well, come along, Psyduck. You need to strech your legs too,  
I guess." conceided the red haired girl.  
  
"Psy."  
  
The two young trainers and their pokemons made their way along the  
trail until they reached the large home of the famous pokemon  
researcher who had originally given Pikachu to Ash. He was busy  
taking care of a large group of bird pocket monsters, feeding them  
the various kinds of seeds they needed to keep their health at  
their peak.  
  
"Hello, Ash, I was beginning to wonder if you`d come. Your mother  
has been telling me that you`ve been a bit under the weather this  
past week." said the grey haired man dressed in his eternal  
scientific labcoat, his nearly wrinkle free face glowing with  
an equally permanent smile.  
  
"Pikachu shocked some sense into me. It put some perspective in  
my head, and gave me the chance to put that defeat behind me."  
explained Ash.  
  
"Good for you! Now you can learn from your defeat and become an  
even better trainer now." agreed Oak.  
  
"Hello again, professor." warmly said Misty.  
  
"I`m glad to see you again, Misty. Your little Togepi seems to  
be doing great as well!"  
  
"He certainly is, professor." she replied.  
  
"Psy." quacked her duck pokemon.  
  
"That`s a lovely specimen of Psyduck you have there." observed  
the professor.  
  
"Do you want him? Because I`d be glad to give you a chance to  
study him if you want! Would two years be okay?" she was prompt  
to offer. Seeing the professor hesitating to respond, she quickly  
made a counter-offer. "Three years? Five? I wouldn`t mind going up  
to ten years if you needed to, I`d be glad to contribute to  
science in any way!!!" she said, laughing nervously.  
  
Ash and Oak both had big sweatdrops.  
  
"I don`t think that`ll be necessary, Misty. I have plenty of  
Psyducks here." said the professor.  
  
"So why did you call me here?" asked Ash, trying to change the  
topic.  
  
"Oh, goodness yes, I almost forgot. Let`s go to my lab, I`ll  
explain everything."  
  
* * *  
  
"Okay, I should have a pretty good haul today." said Juniper as  
she picked up the six pokeball special package from the shelf  
of the Chartreuse general market.  
  
Carrying the colorful carboard box with the Sylph company logo  
prominently displayed on all sides, the blue haired thirteen  
year old girl made no false impression that she was indeed a  
pokemon trainer out for capture. Her two long ponytails shook  
left and right as she looked left and right at the various  
pokemon merchandise, her heavily caffeinated nerves twitching  
like an hyperactive kangaroo on a sugar rush.  
  
"It`s such a nice day... there`s sure to be a lot of bugs out  
there!!!" she said out loud as she paid for her purchase at   
the cash register, solliciting a surprised expression from the  
cashier.  
  
"You LIKE bugs?" he asked her.  
  
"Yeah, I think they`re amazing! Wanna see my Beedrill?" she asked,  
taking a small pokeball from her jacket pocket.  
  
"Err... no thank you... I`ll take your word for it."  
  
"Your loss. It`s a beauty!" she said, putting it back in her pocket.  
  
Walking out of the store, she wasted no time to rip open the  
package and put the empty balls in her pocket, ready to be used.  
She pulled out her pokedex from her shirt pocket, flipping it open  
to see which pokemon she hadn`t seen before that she hoped she might  
meet along the way.  
  
It didn`t matter that she loved bugs above all other types, a full  
pokedex would still look very nifty to show off to the trainers she  
met along her travels.  
  
"Let`s see... Geodude, Onix, Graveler, Diglett... lots of ground  
and rock types I`m missing. Chartreuse has a lot of those, from  
what I heard, so I should see a couple along the way." she mumbled  
to herself. "Well, time to go catch some. Beedrill, I`m gonna need  
you honey!"  
  
She threw in the air a ball she had marked with a small bee sticker  
and a large Beedrill came out, making a few jabs in the air with its  
large stingers to show off his skill.  
  
"DRILL!!!" he said to Juniper, eager for a fight.  
  
"Come on, let`s go!" she said, and the two of them marched off  
into the nearby forest where wild pokemons roamed free.  
  
* * *  
  
"I`m telling you there was SOMETHING out there!!!" screamed a man  
to the Chartreuse city officer Jenny.  
  
"Calm down, sir, just take it from the beginning and I`ll see what  
I can do to help!" said the calm police woman, managing to keep  
the frightened man from starting a mass panic among the people  
who were starting to gather around them.  
  
"It was HUGE! And it ran after me, growling like it wanted to  
kill me!!!" said the man, fear shining in his eyes.  
  
"Was it a wild pokemon?" asked Jenny.  
  
"I`m not sure it was a pokemon... it was made of rock, like  
an Onix, but it had LEGS! I`ve never seen or even heard of  
anything like that anywhere, and I`m an expert about the local  
species!" he explained.  
  
A short distance from the small crowd, a trio of Team Rocket  
members were listening with great interest.  
  
"A new pokemon specie... the boss was right, it is out there!"  
said James.  
  
"Imagine what the boss will say when we bring it back to him...  
and how much money he`ll shower us with!" added Jessie.  
  
"He`ll finally get rid of that mangy fleabag of a Persian and  
I`ll be his number one kitty again!" purred Meowth.  
  
"How are we supposed to catch a rock pokemon that large,  
anyway? I`m still feeling pain from that giant Onix back in  
the mountains near Pallet, and we dismally failed to catch  
that one." complained James.  
  
"Don`t worry your pretty head with that, James, I have an  
idiot-proof plan to accomplish that." said Jessie.  
  
"It better be good, because James is as big an idiot as they  
come!" snarled Meowth.  
  
"HEY! I resent that!" protested James who smacked the small cat  
pokemon upside the head.  
  
"Let`s go, we have a pokemon to grab!" ordered Jessie, pulling James  
by the collar and Meowth by the skin of his neck.  
  
* * *  
  
Professor Oak punched a few keys on his keyboard and called up a  
large chart on his screen, displaying all the pokemons who go  
through an evolution process at some point in their life.  
  
"I`m sure you`re both familiar with these species, and the  
conditions required for their evolutions to take place." said  
Oak.  
  
"Of course." said Misty.  
  
"Err... yeah!" added Ash, trying to hide the fact that he had  
trouble recognizing several of the evolved pokemons displayed  
on the screen.  
  
"You see, this not a well known field. Some pokemons evolve  
once or even twice in their life, but the natural process that  
led these species to develop evolved forms is almost totally  
unknown... but we might have a chance to study it now." said  
Oak.  
  
"How come?" wondered Ash.  
  
"We`ve been receiving reports of unusual pokemon species in  
the area of Chartreuse valley, and it`s my theory that the  
unique conditions there are making it possible for pokemon  
species with no evolved forms to actually CREATE such a form,  
and go up a step on the evolutionary scale." explained Oak.  
  
"So what would you like us to do?" asked Misty.  
  
"I`d like you to go see if you can find anything unusual over  
there that could be making it possible for pokemon to grow larger  
than the rest of their species in general. Finding a new evolved  
form of any pokemon would be absolutely marvelous, if it were  
convenient for you to get me one, but I refuse to have you take  
any stupid risks, got it?"  
  
"Understood, professor." agreed the two young trainers.  
  
"Good lads! Now if you`ll excuse me, I have an experiment in  
progress which I have to monitor."  
  
* * *  
  
After an hour of trekking around the woods, Juniper was beginning  
to be slightly annoyed.  
  
"Where are all those huge bugs that are supposed to be hanging in   
this valley?" she asked to Beedrill.  
  
The pokemon shrugged, unable to give her a satisfying response.  
  
"Yeah, I know, I`m kinda disapointed myself... hey, what`s that?"  
she said, hearing a rustling sound in the brush nearby.  
  
"Who`s there?" she asked.  
  
A large stagbeetle with thorn-covered pinsers on its head walked  
out into the open. Juniper held her breath, as the bigger than  
average Pinsir was every inch as tall as she was.  
  
"WHOA!!! PAYDIRT!!!" she blurted out.  
  
Beedrill flew into action, slashing at the large insect who quickly  
blocked with its solid pinsers.  
  
"Yeah, that`s it, Beedrill! Show him what you`re made of!" she  
encouraged her pokemon who traded blows with the huge insect at  
a dizzying speed, lunging and hacking in between parries and dodges.  
  
Eventually, the highly trained Beedrill outlasted the wild Pinsir  
who began to show signs of exhaustions. The young girl saw the  
opening her precious one needed to make the final blow.  
  
"TWIN NEEDLE!!!" yelled Juniper to her Beedrill.  
  
The pokemon complied to the order, using his fast stinger attack to  
deliver a pair of weakening strikes to the rather large Pinsir which  
Juniper had just stumbled unto by sheer luck.  
  
"Pin...sir..." yelped the wounded bug as it crashed on the ground,  
losing the battle that it had fought so bravely. In the end, the  
bee pokemon had proved the stronger one.  
  
"Well fought, Beedrill!" said Juniper, picking an empty pokeball  
and tossing it on the knocked out Pinsir. The ball opened on  
contact, a red energy beam grabbing the bug and sucking it  
inside the ball as it dematerialized the pokemon`s physical  
form and loaded the pattern inside its complex inner workings.  
  
Juniper bit her lip as she saw the ball shift and roll, as the  
pokemon caught inside still fought against the power of the  
compression field and made a final effort to escape. It proved  
useless in the end, as the ball stopped moving and a small red  
light blinked on the ball`s surface.  
  
Pinsir had been captured.  
  
"YEAH! I got it!!!" she yelled, happily hugging her Beedrill.  
  
"Beedrill!" said the flying insect, proud of the battle`s outcome.  
  
The young girl picked up the ball, smiling. "This one`s going to  
make a GREAT addition to my competition roster for next year`s  
Indigo Plateau championship. And I`ve got a whole year to train  
him too!" she said to her Beedrill, who nodded in agreement.  
  
"I`m telling you, this little Jiu-Jitsu Bellsprout that kicked  
our asses last week is going to pay big time if we face off  
against its trainer again." Juniper added.  
  
She then went completely silent. She thought she heard something.  
  
Another bug pokemon,maybe? No, the ground was starting to shake.  
She pulled out her pokedex, ready to identify whatever it was that  
was making its way in her direction.  
  
"It`s a rock type for sure, and a heavy one." she thought, barely  
managing to keep under control her tendency to word out loud  
everything that went through her mind.  
  
Crawling silently through the underbrush with Beedrill following  
close by, she stumbled upon something absolutely remarkable. It  
looked sort of like an Onix- it had its head and the same long  
trademark body, except that this beast didn`t have a segmented  
body. It looked more like a dragon, with four muscular and clawed  
legs.  
  
Stunned, she pointed her pokedex to this strange creature.  
  
"No entry for this pokemon." was the reply from the small digital  
encyclopedia.  
  
"Well, whatever that is, it`s a pokemon... but a bigass one,  
that`s for sure." she said out loud, realizing too late that  
she had just given away her position.  
  
The large beast turned its head in her direction, making direct  
eye contact with her. The long growl it let out was not a very  
reassuring sound to her ears.  
  
"Just stay calm, Beedrill..." she whispered to her friend. "Maybe  
if we don`t appear aggressive, it`ll just walk away and leave us  
alone to..." she added in a hushed tone, but got interrupted by  
the massive beast.  
  
"DRAGONIX!!!" it screamed before starting to charge her way.  
  
"Oh, bloody hell... RUN!!!" she yelled to Beedrill before making  
a run for it as well. Suddenly, her luck seemed to have vanished  
in a hurry.  
  
  
To be continued  



	2. Default Chapter Title

By Yohann DeSabrais  
  
  
The Hyperion Factor  
  
Part 2: Darwin`s Oversight  
  
  
It wasn`t like her whole day had been going bad. Most of it had been  
pretty good so far for Juniper. The pokemon center where she`d spent  
the night had some blueberry pancakes on the breakfast menu, the  
spare pokeballs she bought were on special, she found and caught a  
ridiculously large Pinsir...  
  
Overall, everything had been going right until that point. With the  
possible exception of a monstrously large pokemon on a vicious  
rampage, this would have been a day to remember. It would still be  
just that, of course, except that she`d rather forget about it  
instead. In the meantime, the abominable beast was doing all it  
could to crush her to a bloody pulp. That one stroke of bad luck  
was throwing the whole balance out of whack as it overshadowed  
every little detail that had turned out good.  
  
"DRAGONIX!!!" screamed the pokemon as it rammed its massive granite  
body against the tree unfortunate enough to have been chosen by  
Juniper as a perch to stay out of the creature`s range.  
  
She held on for dear life to the tree trunk, praying for the branch  
she sat on to hold on and not give under her weight. Her loyal  
Beedrill flew around her, but was obviously overwhelmed by the  
Dragonix`s massive strength to even dare attempt to battle. He  
wished that his mistress had been able to fly away as he could  
do, but unfortunately he had learned early on that humans were  
simply unable to defy gravity.  
  
"Oh shit, why does this sort of crap always have to happen on a  
tuesday?" she said out loud, cursing loudly in a colorful language  
as the tree shook violently with each beastly ramming charge. "I  
HATE TUESDAAAAAAAYS!!!" she cried out, her voice echoing in the  
deserted woods.  
  
Well, not so deserted at any rate. A pair of teenagers was making  
its way to her location at that very moment, homing in on Juniper`s  
frantic screaming.  
  
"You gotta admit, that girl`s got some lungs on her!" said the  
cat pokemon walking along with them.  
  
"You`re telling me, she`s going to lead us straight to this new  
pokemon and allow us to catch it for the boss!" said Jessie, her  
eyes glowing with excitement as she imagined the mountains of  
cash Giovanni would lay at her feet.  
  
"Yeah, the reward he`ll give us will make it worth carrying this  
heavy gear around!" said James, painfully walking under the weight  
of the equipment required for Team Rocket`s latest scheme.  
  
"Yeah, for once we`ll CATCH the pokemon we aim to get!" observed  
Meowth. Jessie wanted to protest and mention some of their earlier  
successes, but she changed her mind when she remembered that they  
didn`t have any yet.  
  
"Just get the gear ready, I think we`re there." she ordered to her  
male accomplices.  
  
* * *  
  
"Hey Misty, we`re almost there." said Ash as he gently nudged  
the water pokemon trainer out of her sleep.  
  
"Hmm, what?" she mumbled, still half asleep.  
  
"Our bus is almost in Chartreuse city, we`ll be there in a few  
minutes." replied Ash, petting his friend Pikachu who was sitting  
on his lap and enjoying a snack. "I think you enjoy going on  
a bus, don`t you?"  
  
"The movement makes me feel sleepy, I can`t help it. That`s why  
I always go everywhere by bicycle whenever I can. That reminds  
me..." she said, her sharp mind focusing once again.  
  
"I know, I know... I owe you for that bike of yours I trashed."  
sighed Ash, tired of being reminded of his disastrous first  
meetng with Misty.  
  
"I was going to say that we need to get to the pokemon center when  
we arrive, but thanks for mentionning the bicycle, I`d almost  
forgotten." replied Misty in a tone dripping with venom.  
  
"Great, just great..." thought Ash. "I must be having the worst  
day anyone ever had!"  
  
* * *  
  
"HEEEEEELP!!!" screamed Juniper who gripped the tree trunk with  
both arms, panicking when she heard an ominous cracking sound  
after the Dragonix`s last charge.  
  
The monster had heard it too, as it growled a mean spirited  
laugh that scared the Beedrill out of his mind. He desperately  
wanted to do something, but he didn`t know what.  
  
Backing up a few yards, the enormous pokemon down below took  
one final charge, running head on into the tree with a  
deafening sound of wood shattering into a thousand splinters.  
Juniper yelled when she felt the tree go down, wondering which  
of the fall to the ground or the Dragonix waiting for her there   
would be the one to kill her. Seeing her faithful companion   
flying straight for her, she reached out forward and grabbed on   
to his hind legs as he flew by.  
  
The courageous bug flapped his insect wings faster and harder  
than he ever had in his life, trying his best to act as a  
makeshift parachute to the young girl. He did manage to break  
her fall somewhat, though not quite preventing her from getting  
a little bruised on the landing.  
  
The Dragonix slowly walked up to her, seemingly to take time to  
enjoy the final part of the hunt and make its kill last for as  
long as it could.  
  
That`s when the most absurd thing happened. Two teenagers dressed  
in weird white uniform with a big red letter R on their vests  
appeared out of nowhere, taking dramatic poses to recite a  
strange verse of their own invention.  
  
"PREPARE FOR TROUBLE!!!" said Jessie.  
  
"MAKE IT DOUBLE!" said James.  
  
"Huh?" blurted Juniper, Beedrill and Dragonix coming to a  
sudden halt to stare at these two weirdos who were obviously  
out of place from some kind of circus act.  
  
"To protect the world from devastation-"  
  
"To unite all people within our nation-"  
  
"To denounce the evils of truth and love-"  
  
"To reach out to the stars above-"  
  
Juniper had no idea who they were, but they`d get killed if they  
kept up this bizarre act.  
  
"JESSIE!"  
  
"JAMES!"  
  
"Team Rocket blast off at the speed of light!"  
  
"Surrender now, or prepare to fight!"  
  
"Meowth, that`s right!"  
  
Silence fell among the disbelieving onlookers. Neither the girl  
nor the two pokemon knew for sure what to do about them.  
  
"Quick James, while it`s standing still!!!" said Jessie to her  
ally who strapped on his back a heavy looking backpack with a  
large watergun attached to it. "FIRE!!!"  
  
Squeezing the trigger, the blue haired boy unleashed a powerful  
stream of water upon the rock body of the Dragonix. The beast  
reeled back under the stream of liquid, knocked into a senseless  
daze as it was struck by an element against which it was weak.  
  
"Yeah, this is working!" said Jessie, her expression changing  
when she noticed the water stream wither and go down to a trickle,  
their weapon suddenly out of ammunition.  
  
"Uh oh, this ain`t good..." commented Meowth.  
  
"I told you we should have spent more for the LARGER water  
reserve pack!" protested James.  
  
"Hey, you`re the one who complained about having to carry the  
extra weight around!" snapped Jessie.  
  
"Err... guys... the pokemon..." said Meowth, trying to point out  
that Dragonix was getting his senses back.  
  
"SHUT YOUR MEOWTH!" yelled both Jessie and James to the cat  
pokemon, oblivious to the impending danger.  
  
Juniper still didn`t know what was going on, but decided to  
follow the advice of her Beedrill and hightail it out of there  
while those two weirdos were distracting the Dragonix.  
  
The ground suddenly shaking under their feet brought the  
squabbling Rockets to realize what their Meowth was trying to  
say: the hulking pokemon was charging their way. They barely  
had time to dodge the incoming monster.  
  
"THAT`S IT, I`ve had enough of him! ARBOK, LICKITUNG, GO!!!"  
said the red haired girl, her face twisted from rage. She threw  
her pokeballs to release a giant purple cobra and a rather  
bizarre stumpy creature with an unimaginably longue tongue.  
  
"Arbok, poison sting! Lickitung, lick attack!!!" she ordered them.  
  
The snake opened its jaws and spat out a stream of poisonous  
sparks of light while its pink companion stretched out its tongue  
to give a paralyzing lick to the aggressive creature. Arbok`s  
attack just bounced off, while Lickitung scraped the fragile  
surface of his tongue against the rough granite hide of his  
opponent.  
  
"We need a GRASS type pokemon here!" said James in an   
uncharacteristic display of intelligence. "VICTREEBELL, GO!"  
  
The enormous carnivorous plant leapt out of the small red and  
white ball thrown by the blue haired boy, going straight for  
the closest and most appealing source of food currently  
available to him, namely James himself.  
  
"Not me, attack the pokemon! The pokemon!!!" protested James,  
his voice muffled as he tried to extricate himself from his  
own Victreebell`s deep stomach.  
  
"DRAGONIX!!!" yelled the massive beast as it charged the inept  
Team Rocket and their pokemon, making a direct hit and sending  
them flying high in the sky, disappearing in the horizon as the  
trio screamed their usual admission of defeat...  
  
"Looks like Team Rocket`s blasting off agaaaaaaaaaain..."  
  
Juniper limped back to town with the help of Beedrill, but she  
still couldn`t figure out who Jessie and James were.  
  
"Beedrill... what the HELL just happened?" she asked him  
rethorically, to which the puzzled bug pokemon just silently   
shrugged his shoulders in incomprehension.  
  
"Yeah, same for me, I`ll be damned if I know who these jokers  
were."  
  
* * *  
  
"You know, it`s pretty amazing that a town that didn`t exist just  
three years ago already has a pokemon center." observed Misty as  
she looked at the beautifully designed bulding prominently  
featuring a pokeball on the top of its dome.  
  
"I`ve heard that the local trainers are already having tryouts  
to determine who will be the gym leader once the pokemon league  
officially sanctions their gym." added Ash, reading some  
information about Chartreuse city from a tourist guide given to  
him by professor Oak.  
  
"Pika!" said Pikachu, noticing that a lot of people in the city  
were walking with their pet pokemon.  
  
"You`re right, Pikachu, this town is very pokemon friendly!"  
agreed Ash.  
  
"Let`s go in, then, shall we?" suggested Misty.  
  
"Good idea. If anyone can tell us more about these new pokemon  
sightings, we`re sure to find them there." said Ash. "Besides,  
I`m getting hungry. Would you like a bite to eat, Pikachu?"  
  
"Pika pika!"  
  
Walking in the center, they could see that some things never  
changed no matter where you went. Among those, the oh so familiar  
face of nurse Joy, the exact mirror image of all the other Joys  
that Ash and Misty had ever encountered on their travels.  
  
"Hello there, welcome to the Chartreuse pokemon center, how can  
I help you?" she said, smiling radiantly as always.  
  
Ash smiled nervously, creeped out that yet another nurse Joy  
perpetuated this genetic running gag. Noticing her friend`s  
discomfort, Misty stepped forward and spoke for the both of them.  
  
"Hello, we`d like to rest our pokemon a little and get something  
to eat." she said.  
  
"Gepi!!!" went her little hatchling pokemon, waving around his  
tiny arms.  
  
"Oh, that is such a darling pokemon! Where did you find him?"  
asked the nurse.  
  
"I sort of stumbled into his egg before he hatched. There`s  
still a lot we don`t know about him, but hopefully we`ll learn  
a lot." said Misty.  
  
"Oh, I see, I thought that maybe you found him in the woods.  
There`s been a lot of reports of unusual pokemons being spotted  
there recently." said Joy.  
  
"Any words on what they look like?" asked Ash.  
  
"If you buy me a coffee, I`ll tell you what I saw." said someone  
behind them. Turning around, Ash and Misty saw a blue haired girl  
who had apparently been put through hell, her clothes ripped up  
in several places and her arms covered with bruises and scratches.  
  
"Dear lord, what happened to you?" said Joy, horrified to see a  
young trainer in such a state.  
  
"I came here to heal my pokemon... what else?" Juniper responded,  
pulling a few pokeballs from her pocket. "So tell me, kid, are  
you interested in my story or not?" she asked Ash, giving him  
a smile that spoke volumes about her attitude. A lot of people  
would have described her using the word "suicidal", though she  
preferred using the term "bold".  
  
"Err... we`ll also be having some coffee, please..." mumbled  
Ash, slightly taken aback.  
  
* * *  
  
"How far do we have to go?" complained James, his sore back  
putting him in constant pain.  
  
"I told you before, as far as we need until we find a phone  
booth!" snapped Jessie.  
  
"This road is almost endless!" observed Meowth, his paws in a  
lot of pain after walking so much following his brutal landing.  
  
"Just shut up and keep walking!" replied Jessie.  
  
"We wouldn`t have to be walking if you hadn`t broken your landing  
with the cell phone!" protested James.  
  
"It`s hardly MY fault if the cell phone happened to be in my  
pocket at the time! How was I supposed to know we`d end up in  
this situation?" asked Jessie. She looked at her two teammates  
who just stared at her silently, their faces indicating that  
they were about to remind her of the Team Rocket track record.  
  
"On second thought, don`t answer that question." she added.  
  
"Hey, look over there!!!" said Meowth, pointing to an object  
in the distance. The other two squinted and identified the  
faraway shape on the side of the Charteuse main highway as a  
phone booth.  
  
"YES!!!" they all yelled, their pain a long gone memory as they  
ran with all their speed.  
  
Once they reached the phone a few minutes later, Jessie dropped a  
coin in the slot and dialed the one number where she knew she  
could get help.  
  
"Hello, boss, Jessie here... we`re reporting on our progress."  
she said.   
  
"How does he sound?" whispered James.  
  
"He seems happy to hear from us again, almost surprised to get any  
news from us at all. Almost like he didn`t expect us to survive  
or something!" she replied.  
  
"That proves without a doubt why he sent us... because he trusted  
us to live through the greatest dangers he could find!" explained  
James in the usual self-delusion that Team Rocket lived in.  
  
"You got THAT right, James!" agreed Jessie, trading a victory  
sign with her partner.  
  
"So what is the boss saying?" wondered Meowth.  
  
"He wants to know what happened..." she whispered to Meowth.  
"You see, boss, we did see the pokemon everyone was reporting,  
even battled it. Well, we got sort of... trashed. This is why  
we`re calling from a booth, the cellular is trashed too." she  
explained to Giovanni, expecting to get chewed up... but her  
expression went from fearful to happily surprised when she heard  
what he had to tell her.  
  
"Yes, sir, I know that this mission of the utmost importance, and  
if you`ll just help us out a little, I`m sure we will succeed...  
what? You will? Oh, that`s incredible!" she said.  
  
"What`s he saying?" asked James.  
  
"The boss... he`s sending in THE TECH!" said Jessie, covering the  
receiver with her hand as she told James the good news.  
  
"You`re serious? The Tech?!? That`s amazing!!!" said James.  
  
"Yes, boss... okay... thank you again, you won`t be disappointed!"  
concluded Jessie before hanging up.  
  
"Wow... the Tech... we`re certain to catch Dragonix now!!!"  
said James, ecstatic with this sudden turn of events.  
  
Meowth still couldn`t see what was so amazing about all this.  
  
"Who is the Tech, anyway?"  
  
Jessie and James looked at him as if he`d asked what was so  
important about breathing air.  
  
"You never heard of the Tech?" asked James, Meowth`s confused  
expression giving him his answer.  
  
"He`s a former researcher from Sylph who joined Team Rocket  
shortly after the boss tried to take over the company. He had  
wilingly teamed up with us, and he remained loyal to our cause  
after we failed to become the owners." said Jessie.  
  
"The guy is a legend, he has an uncanny knack to use seemingly  
useless pokemon and becoming unbeatable in battle using them!"  
said James.  
  
"I heard he beat an Alakazam using a Machop!" mentionned Jessie.  
  
"I heard he won over an Electrode using a MAGIKARP!" added James.  
  
"So this guy is good?" asked Meowth.  
  
"This guy is a legend among the Rockets! I`m surprised you never  
heard of him... and now, he`s coming here under our direct  
command!" said James.  
  
"Yeah... just imagine, having the Tech under our orders!!!" said  
Jessie who giggled happily.  
  
* * *  
  
The lab of the man who went only by the nickname "Tech" was  
something to behold, insofar as it was a mess beyond belief.  
Out of the chaos of this workshop, however, came the genius  
level inventions that he had made himself a name for.  
  
Before quitting the Sylph company, the Tech had been working on  
their most secret project, the Masterball. A single prototype  
had been created, lost, and its blueprints subsequently destroyed,  
seemingly putting the dream of this ultimate pokeball out of reach  
for ever... or so it seemed. Using his phenomenal memory, his  
own theories which he had contributed to the project and a good  
part of intuition combined with insane ideas, he had recreated  
on his desk a near approximation of the Masterball.  
  
The man in his late twenties looked upon his creations, a set  
of three ultra balls modified by his skilled hands to increase  
nealry tenfold the power of compression field and decrease the  
initial capture`s processing time by a factor of four. Each one  
of those balls would allow him to capture the most powerful  
pokemon in the world without even having to weaken or paralyze  
them first.  
  
Assuming they worked at all, of course, as these "hyper balls"  
were untested as of yet.  
  
The videophone on his desk rang- the caller ID function showed  
him that the person making this call was none other than the  
leader of Team Rocket himself.  
  
"Hey there, Giovanni." said Tech.  
  
"Greetings, old friend. Is your little toy ready yet?" asked   
Giovanni.  
  
"Certainly is, I had just enough materials to make three, which  
should be enough to catch one immensely strong pokemon and know  
for sure if my hyper balls work properly." said the odd man.  
  
"If your hyper ball is an inexpensive replacement to the   
Masterball, would not a single one be sufficient to test its  
effectiveness?" observed the Rocket leader.  
  
"True, if it wasn`t for a small design flaw in the hyper ball,  
I would really need only one."  
  
"That small flaw would be...?"  
  
"If my aim is bad and I miss the pokemon with my throw... the  
compression field of the activated ball collapses after a few  
seconds and the hyper ball detonates like a fragmentation  
grenade." explained the scientist.  
  
"I can see how that would be annoying." agreed Giovanni.  
  
"So what do you have for me to test my new toys on?"  
  
"My field agents have located a new specie in Chartreuse valley.  
It is quite powerful, and will provide adequate challenge for you.  
You will meet them in Chartreuse city immediately, and they will  
guide you to its location." explained Giovanni.  
  
"This is a pretty dangerous assignment, you know. How attached  
are you to those agents?" wondered Tech.  
  
"They are quite expendable, which is why I sent them in the first  
place. You are free to use them as bait and sacrifial pawns as  
you see fit. Is that an ethical or moral problem for you?"  
asked the Rocket leader, his expression changing as he waited  
to see if the Tech was going to go soft on him.  
  
"Hell no. I just wanted to know if you were adamant on seeing them  
come back after this is all wrapped up in a neat little pokeball.  
You ARE aware of my track record regarding... shall we say,  
teamwork record?"  
  
"All too aware, to be honest." said Giovanni. "That`s why I sent  
in those incompetent morons to assist you, because I won`t have  
any trouble sleeping when you come back alone from Chartreuse."  
  
The videophone call broke off, leaving the Tech to gather the  
few things that he needed for his mission. He smiled. This was  
going to be fun.  
  
* * *  
  
"Oh yeah, that`s what I needed!" said Juniper in contentment as  
she sipped a cup of piping hot coffee.  
  
"That pokemon must have been really strong to knock down that  
tree you were hiding in." observed Misty.  
  
"Oh yes, incredibly powerful. I wouldn`t want to face that thing  
in battle again!" she said in between two sips.  
  
"How did you get away from it anyway?" asked Ash.  
  
"Two weird trainers just waltzed in reciting a poem, and grabbed  
the Dragonix`s attention. I was lucky that they gave me the  
distraction I needed to get the hell out of there, but they  
weren`t quite skilled enough to escape from it themselves. They  
got clobbered up pretty bad themselves, from what I saw." she  
said.  
  
"Did their weird poem start by *Prepare for trouble and make it  
double*, by any chance?" asked Misty.  
  
"And did they travel with a TALKING Meowth too?" added Ash, who  
also found Juniper`s description oddly familiar.  
  
The young trainer tried to remember her encounter, and nodded as  
she seemed to recall that the cat pokemon DID say more than just  
his own name. In addition, their corny intro was something she  
could never forget, no matter how hard she tried.  
  
"You know them?" she asked.  
  
Ash and Misty sighed.  
  
"Unfortunately, yes we do. We can never seem to go anywhere  
without running into those bozos. The only bright point about  
them is that they`re too incompetent to ever succeed in any of  
their hair-brained schemes." said Ash.  
  
"Yeah, they never seem to ever get anything done." agreed Misty.  
  
"You haven`t told me why you`re interested in this new specie,  
by the way. Somehow, I can tell that it`s more than just typical  
trainer interest." said Juniper.  
  
"You called that one right." agreed Ash. "We were sent in by  
professor Oak to investigate."  
  
"You two know professor Oak?"  
  
"Yes, he`s the one who gave me my Pikachu."  
  
"Pika!" said Pikachu, hopping on Juniper`s lap and hugging her.  
  
"Pikachu`s a pretty good judge of character, if he likes you  
then it means that you must be a very nice person." said Ash.  
  
"You seem like very nice people yourselves... what are your  
names?" asked the blue haired girl as she scratched Pikachu  
behind the ears to his great pleasure.  
  
"I`m Ash."  
  
"I`m Misty."  
  
"Glad to meet you, I`m Juniper... hey, aren`t you the Cerulean  
city Misty, the gym leader?"  
  
"Yes, I am. Water pokemon are my passion!" said Misty.  
  
"Wow, pleased to meet you! I was going to drop by Cerulean in  
a few weeks to challenge you for a badge!" said Juniper.  
  
The two girls began chatting away back and forth, leaving a very  
frustrated Ash outside of the conversation. He yawned loudly as  
the girls kept on chatting, almost falling asleep from boredom.  
  
"What pokemons are you carrying with you anyway?" asked Misty  
with great interest.  
  
"Well, most of them are being healed by nurse Joy right now, but  
I do have one left with me who hasn`t fought in a few days. You`ll  
absolutely love him, he`s ADORABLE!!!" said Juniper with big hearts  
sparkling in her eyes as she took a pokeball from her pocket.  
  
"WAI! Can I see him, pretty please???" asked Misty with the same  
look on her face.  
  
"Sure! Say hello to my little CATERPIE!" said Juniper as a small  
green caterpilar pokemon formed on the cafeteria table, staring  
at Misty with its big round black eyes.  
  
Misty looked at it as her expression grew livid... then she  
let out a mind shattering shriek of terror.  
  
  
to be continued...  



	3. Default Chapter Title

By Yohann DeSabrais  
  
  
The Hyperion Factor  
  
Part 3: Collision Course  
  
"Did someone get hurt?!?" repeatedly asked the frantic Joy as she  
ran into the cafeteria, alerted by the horrid shriek that tore  
through the whole pokemon center, getting everybody`s attention.  
  
She was expecting to see somebody with broken bones or deep cuts  
from a broken cup, but instead she found something totally  
different, namely Misty holding on to one of the cafeteria`s  
overhanging light fixtures, shivering in pure terror.  
  
"It`s okay, Caterpie, she didn`t mean to scream like that, you  
just scared her..." Juniper said to her traumatized pokemon,  
cuddling it as it trembled from the stress it just suffered.  
  
"HOW did she get all the way up there?!?" wondered Joy as she  
looked at Misty who had just displayed amazing acrobatic skills  
to climb up to the hanging light.  
  
"I`m not entirely sure myself, it all happened so fast!" answered  
Ash.  
  
"Pika..." said Pikachu, staring at Misty who was scared out of her  
mind.  
  
"I`m sorry if I scared your friend, Ash... I had no idea she was  
afraid of bugs like that. I love them so much myself, it`s easy to  
forget that some people just can`t stand them at all." said  
the blue haired girl.  
  
"Misty`s freaked out every time she ever encountered a bug since  
I`ve known her. Do you have other bug pokemon, by the way?"  
asked Ash.  
  
Juniper`s face went pale as she realized which pokemon she was  
currently carrying in her roster.  
  
"Well... I`ve got a Pinsir... and Beedrill... a Venonat... oh  
boy, let`s face it, it`s just not going to work between my little  
darlings and Misty!" she said.  
  
Ash sighed.  
  
"Gepi?" said Togepi, looking up at his terrified trainer.  
  
"How do we get her down, now?" asked Juniper.  
  
"Your guess is as good as mine." said Ash.  
  
* * *  
  
With total disregard for speed limits and safety, the deranged  
man known as the Tech drove his metallic red Ferarri along the  
recently built highway leading to the town of Chartreuse.  
  
Barelling down the main street`s exit, he barely slowed down as  
he entered town, immediately grabbing the attention of the local  
officer Jenny who pursued him with her motorcycle, all warning  
lights flashing. In a loud screech of Vulpirelli tires burning   
rubber, he stopped on a dime and awaited the police officer to  
walk up to his car.  
  
Just like clockwork, the blue haired constable stepped off her  
bike, taking her helmet off as she approached and knocked on his  
window. At the touch of a button, the tinted glass rolled down  
and he contemptuously looked at her through mirrored glasses.  
  
"Yes?" he asked with a mocking grin.  
  
"Do you have any idea how FAST you were going?" the officer asked  
him with stone cold calm.  
  
"I don`t know, my spedometer doesn`t go above 160 kph." he said  
in a very tasteless manner.  
  
"Then you won`t be too surprised by the big ticket you just got  
yourself, buster." she replied. "I`ll need to see your permit and  
identification."  
  
The driver handed over the requested documents, but never let go  
of his arrogant expression as she filled out the lines of the  
traffic regulation violation paperwork.  
  
"Here you are, hotshot, a speeding ticket to match the size of   
your ego." she said as she handed over the pink slip of paper   
after returning the personal documents to the driver.  
  
The Tech grinned even wider as he looked at her from top to bottom,  
laughing as he reached for the ticket. "It was worth the fine just  
to get to see such a sexy lady in action." he observed. As he  
pulled on the ticket, he felt resistance. Jenny was holding on to  
the piece of paper, her eyes burning with anger.  
  
"Just be careful not to do anything stupid again. I`m the law in   
these parts, and I`d hate to have to ARREST you and show you the  
full extent of my DISCRETIONARY powers." she threatened him with  
a smile before letting go of the ticket and heading back for her  
bike.  
  
"Bitch." grumbled the Tech before tossing the pink paper slip on  
the back seat to join several more tickets from various regions,  
all of them with eerily similar handwriting.  
  
* * *  
  
Misty was sitting silently at a table in a corner, looking quite  
embarassed at the incident that had taken place. The cafeteria  
was dreadfully silent save for the hushed whispers exchanged by  
the other trainers present. Misty pretended not to hear them,  
but she could tell they were all talking about her. Her outburst  
of panic had made quite an impression, and she was still a bit   
shaken from it.  
  
She held Togepi on her lap, the little hatchling pokemon hugging  
her lovingly, though she barely noticed. The water trainer almost  
didn`t see the blue haired girl sitting down in front of her  
either, still lost in thought and self-pity.  
  
"Where do I even start saying how sorry I am?" said Juniper,  
nervously breaking the ice.  
  
"I`m the one who should apologize. We were having a great time  
until I screamed my head off like a panicked idiot." replied  
Misty, avoiding to look the bug trainer in the eyes.  
  
"I precipitated everything by doing the one thing you hate most,  
shoving a bug in your face. Even if it was an accident, it doesn`t  
change that it happened anyway." said Juniper.  
  
Misty looked up and saw Juniper`s genuine concern reflecting in her  
expression.  
  
"You really love bugs, don`t you?" asked Misty who noticed her new  
friend nervously fidgetting a pokeball.  
  
"Yes, I do." she replied, placing the ball on the table. It had  
a pretty sticker on the red half, looking like a bee with silver  
sparkles shining on it. "I`m especially attached to this one."  
  
Misty felt a bit nervous knowing that there was an insect within  
that ball, but she could see how much the pokemon meant to Juniper.  
In a way, it helped her overcome her phobia somewhat.  
  
"How did you find it?" she asked.  
  
"Dad gave it to me." Juniper replied. "When I turned ten three  
years ago, he took me to the woods near our home, and he captured  
one to show me how it was done. We found this little Weedle, and  
he trapped it into a pokeball... the following day, he registered  
me as a trainer like I`d been bugging him to do for years, and he  
gave me the Weedle as my first one."  
  
"You`ve had it with you since then?" wondered Misty.  
  
"Yeah. Over time it turned into a Kakuna, then a beautiful Beedrill.  
I love it very much, and we`re always together." said Juniper.  
  
"Your dad must be proud of you, being successful like that."  
  
"Thank you, Misty... I know he is. I have worked incredibly hard  
for those badges I got over the years, and I always look forward  
to earn more and hone my skills, as well as train my little friend  
to be the very best Beedrill there is."  
  
Despite her fear of bugs nagging incessantly, her curiosity was  
growing rapidly. This bug had to be very special to have captured  
the love of this wonderful girl.  
  
"Can I... see it?" wondered Misty hesitantly.  
  
"Are you sure? It`s still a bug, you know..."  
  
"I`m aware of it, so I won`t be caught off guard this time." she  
said, laughing nervously. "I just won`t touch it."  
  
"Okay, just tell me if this creeps you out too much then." said  
Juniper as she tapped on the ball and a Beedrill popped out.  
  
The bug trainer opened her arms and the bug rushed to her, its  
mistress hugging it tenderly. It was a bit disturbing to Misty,  
seeing such a large bug from up close, but at the same time it  
had a touching quality. Their bond was undeniable, and had been  
forged through time and trials, just like her own pokemon.  
  
Misty smiled.  
  
"I`ll just make sure that my little darlings keep some distance   
from you, how does that sound?" offered Juniper.  
  
"You`ve got yourself a deal, Juniper." agreed Misty.  
  
Ash was looking at them from across the cafeteria, Pikachu   
stuffing himself with apple pieces he was happily dipping in  
a small bowl of ketchup. The young trainer smiled, it looked  
like the other two trainers would get along after all.  
  
* * *  
  
It walked alone in the Chartreuse valley woods, growling loudly  
to make its superiority known to all the local wildlife.  
  
"DRAGONIX!" roared the immense rock pokemon, scaring off a small  
flock of pidgeys from the surrounding bushes.  
  
The Dragonix dug its claws in the thin layer of dirt, leaving   
severe gashes in the bedrock underneath and marking its territory.  
  
Having scared off the Onixes of the area, the huge dragonlike  
pokemon was very satisfied with itself. There was no one more  
powerful than itself in the valley.  
  
Well, almost no one.  
  
--Dragonix...--  
  
The large juggernaut looked around, it had heard its name calling  
out in a soft whisper.  
  
--Yes, you did hear me, didn`t you?--  
  
The voice didn`t seem to come from anywhere in particular, it  
just echoed gently inside its head. The pokemon knew it belonged  
to its master, the one single being he would obey.  
  
--Return to me, my precious. You`ve had a nice stomp around our  
home, but it`s time to come back now.-- said the voice, tender  
whisper that made so much sense to the Dragonix`s mind.  
  
Without wasting time, the pokemon turned around and walked back to  
the place he knew was home. The voice was rewarding for its action,   
calling it back.  
  
--Yes, my pretty, that`s it, come back to me...--  
  
The Dragonix made its way to an abandonned mining shaft whose  
existance dated back to several centuries, having gone into disuse  
after more convenient sources of ore had been found in other  
regions. It stopped at the entrance, a pair of glowing red eyes  
welcoming it through the darkness of the main entrance`s tunnel.  
  
"Welcome back, my child." the voice whispered.  
  
The Dragonix bellowed, but not in anger or fear... rather in what   
could be best identified as respect. It walked into the mine  
shaft opening, acting in a way befitting a well trained pet.  
  
* * *  
  
Underneath the Viridian city gym, nobody suspected that the once  
disused underground tunnels had been converted into a high-tech  
laboratory now in the service of the infamous Team Rocket. Very  
few people knew of that lab, most of Team Rocket itself being kept  
in the dark about its existance save for the actual staff and  
the secretive Giovanni.  
  
The leader of Team Rocket had the entrances well dissimulated,   
such as the elevator installed in the shower of his personal   
bathroom within the gym. Requiring palm print identification, no  
one without authorization would be able to access it.  
  
Once the elevator opened to the main access corridor, the dim   
lights combined with the overhanging smell of chemicals, moisture  
and other unidentifiable odors would seize the visitors and  
assault their senses with an unmistakable impression that there  
was evil at work there.  
  
Giovanni stepped off his elevator alone. Although he normally kept  
his Persian with him at all times, this was one place where he  
didn`t want his precious pet to visit. If the cat pokemon got  
caught in an accident, the results would be... unpleasant.  
  
All over the place, biohazard warning signs were slapped across  
the various doors, radioactive product storerooms were side by  
side with computer material warehouses and all across the secret  
compound were pokemon cages. As Giovanni walked past the holding  
pens, the pokemon trapped within instinctively reacted in fear,  
cowering in the corners. Some of them had been used in horrid  
experiment themselves, though most of them feared the human  
scientists from hearing the other test subjects` screams of pain,  
as well as seeing the dead bodies hauled out of the labs. The  
smarter specimens knew that their turn would come sooner or later.  
  
This secret had an extremely high death rate among its test  
subjects, although this did not surprise those who had access to  
the research data.  
  
The Team Rocket leader walked right past them without blinking,  
failing to express the smallest amount of compassion. These little  
creatures were nothing to him except pawns to be sacrificed in  
a chess game of power, means to an end. He`d build the staircase  
to his ultimate triumph out of their dead bodies if he needed to  
do so, and wouldn`t think twice about it either.  
  
He did not hesitate as he walked across the length of the hidden  
compound, going straight to the one door with the heaviest   
security. Requiring palm print and retina scan confirmations,  
Giovanni`s most secretive project was housed within walls made of  
the strongest alloys known to science.  
  
"Identity confirmed. You may enter." whispered a soft male computer  
generated voice as the heavy deadbolts unlocked and the doors opened  
in a loud noise of grinding steel.  
  
"Professor Murdock..." he said as he entered the lab, looking around  
to find the project leader.  
  
"I`m here, sir!" said an aging man whose step betrayed nothing of  
his advanced age, unlike his parchment-like skin. "Why the personal  
visit, wouldn`t a phone call save you the trouble of coming all the  
way down here?"  
  
Giovanni stood silently in front of him, his unblinking stare  
making the old man rapidly uncomfortable.  
  
"Have you need of subject M-2?" he asked hesitantly.  
  
The hard cold eyes of the Rocket leader turned aside for a brief  
instant, looking at the unique pokemon specimen held within the  
most high-tech containment money could buy. Even with this  
exceptionally powerful barrier in place, the large beast was  
restrained through shackles and a special helmet to hinder its  
immense psychic prowess. Giovanni repressed a shudder at the   
thought of this creature ever escaping his control.  
  
"No." he replied, returning his attention to Murdock. "I`m here  
to ask you some explanations about another subject... PD-42 to  
be exact."  
  
The old man gulped when he remembered which specimen Giovanni  
referred to.  
  
"I sincerely apologize for this one specimen managing to escape  
our facility, but I sincerely doubt that we should be worried at  
all about this." he tried to explain.  
  
"How do you figure this incompetence to be somehow ACCEPTABLE?  
What if M-2 itself was to escape? A simple apology would be  
enough to make up for all our deaths, I suppose?" scolded the  
menacing man.  
  
"This is irrelevant, PD-42 was a complete failure, no enhanced  
abilities, no special powers and not even any intelligence to  
speak of... in short, a complete vegetable, stupider still than  
a plant pokemon! Its contribution to the Hyperion project was   
abysmal at best!" he argued.  
  
"So let me get this straight... you allowed yourself to be  
outsmarted by a mental midget who`d lose a battle of wits against  
a coffee mug?" snarled Giovanni.  
  
Murdock wondered for a second if the escaped subject might have   
been smarter than he seemed, hiding its newfound brains to escape   
its captors... but the scientist dared not mention that possibility  
as it would be worse still than what he was being blamed for   
already.  
  
"We`ll get it back sooner or later. It has been implanted with an  
ID chip just like all the others." said the old man.  
  
"You better make it sooner, or you might not be around later."  
threatened Giovanni.  
  
* * *  
  
"I think we should give professor Oak a call. He might have some  
insight about that new pokemon that Juniper saw." suggested Misty.  
  
"Yeah, besides, we promised to call him as soon as we got here. We  
haven`t done that yet, he`s probably worried sick by now." agreed  
Ash.  
  
"Pika!" nodded the cute yellow mouse.  
  
Locating the pokemon center`s phone, Ash sat in front of the video  
monitor and punched in the professor`s number. It took several rings  
before he received an answer.  
  
"Yes? Hello?" asnwered the professor, looking surprised and confused.  
  
"Hi, professor. This is Ash calling from Chartreuse." he said.  
  
"Chatreuse? Goodness, what are you doing there?" he asked, then  
slapped his forehead and laughed nervously as he remembered. "Oh  
yes, the new pokemon species. My, I`d forgotten about that."  
  
Standing behind Ash, Misty and Juniper sighed.  
  
"Is he ALWAYS that absent-minded?" whispered Juniper to Misty.  
  
"No, he`s not usually that quick to figure out what`s going on."  
she replied with a giggle.  
  
"So, what have you discovered so far?" asked the professor who was  
trying to push away a small meowth. The pokemon was purring in   
curiosity, clawing at the research papers on his desk.  
  
"We`ve met someone who actually saw it with her own eyes!!!" said  
Misty as she pushed Ash aside to get a few words in edgewise.  
  
"Hi, I`m Juniper!" said the blue haired girl.  
  
"Hello there, young lady! Misty tells me you SAW a new specie?"  
said the professor with great interest.  
  
"Yes, it was a rock pokemon, the pokedex didn`t even recognize it."  
she explained, reaching for her electronic encyclopedia. "It should  
be captured in my pokedex, I could transmit you the image I snapped  
when I tried to identify it."  
  
"Good idea! And while the data`s transmitting, maybe you could have  
a word with a good friend of Ash and Misty`s who`s working with me  
right now, he`s a specialist in rock types, and has great insight  
in evolution matters." said the professor, calling over to the  
a very familiar man with spiky black hair and eyes squinting so  
bad that you could almost swear he was blind.  
  
"Hey Brock!" said Misty. "How are you?"  
  
"Doing great, guys! The professor says you have a friend who saw  
a new pokemon specie?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, that would be me!" said Juniper as she pushed aside Ash  
who fell from his chair, the blue haired girl swiftly taking his  
place.  
  
"Whoa... she`s goooooooorgeous... lemme help you any way I can,  
let`s discuss this over dinner and a movie!" said the lecherous  
breeder, all traces of common sense erradicated from his lovestruck  
mind.  
  
"Down, boy." said Misty with a mischievous grin.  
  
Juniper sighed and looked at Pikachu. "Are ALL of your friends  
completely nuts?"  
  
The pokemon laughed nervously. "Chuuu..." he said with an obvious   
sarcasm that was easily noticeable even to someone who couldn`t  
understand what pokemon said.  
  
* * *  
  
Parked behind a chinese restaurant, the former Sylph research  
scientist waited for his contacts to arrive. The Tech had been told  
by Giovanni to expect the worst, although nothing could quite  
prepare him for the Team Rocket experience.  
  
Halfway through his pineapple chicken container, he noticed three  
figures stepping out of the shadows and into the range of his rear   
view mirror. Two of them were human, and the third stood barely  
one foot tall, obviously a pokemon. All three wore trenchcoats and  
matching hats, looking like rejects from a bad fifties private eye  
movie.  
  
"These guys can`t be serious..." thought the Tech as he put his  
food on the dashboard and stared at the trio in disbelief. The  
three of them slowly lifted their head up, showing dark sunglasses  
which they took off smoothly in perfect synch with each other.  
  
"Dear god, they are." he sighed.  
  
Jessie, James and Meowth joined the cynical agent at his car, doing  
their best to look cool and prove their motto, "style over   
substance."  
  
"Jessie, James and Meowth, I presume?" he asked after lowering his  
door window.  
  
"That`s us!" said Meowth with a fanged grin.  
  
"He recognized us!" said James with a happy giggle.  
  
"Yeah, whatever." snapped the Tech, giving them an impression that  
he didn`t care about their reputation. That impression was right  
too. "Giovanni sent you three to scope the new specie, so where  
can I find it?"  
  
The blue haired boy and the red haired girl looked at each other  
nervously.  
  
"You DO know where to find it, right?" asked the Tech, opening  
his car door and stepping out. He was taller than the two of them  
by well over a foot and a half, his all black clothes further   
increasing the menacing impression.  
  
"Well, we do know WHERE it is..." blurted James.  
  
"We`re just not sure if it`s such a good idea to go back there."  
said Meowth.  
  
"We wouldn`t want you to get hurt by that... thing. The boss  
would be none too pleased if his best agent got killed, you know."  
quickly added Jessie to make herself and her teammates look less  
cowardly. "We didn`t think that..."  
  
"You think too much, and it`s not your strongest asset to begin   
with." interrupted the cynical agent who reached inside his car to   
get the small briefcase on the back seat among the huge number of   
speeding and parking tickets. "Damn, these things must add up  
to well over two thousand bucks. It`s a good thing I don`t care."  
  
Jessie looked at James, looking visibly annoyed. James shrugged  
his shoulders, unable to come up with a way to impress the agent  
who was treating them like dirt. Even by Team Rocket standards,  
this was pretty insulting.  
  
"Look buddy, if you want to get yourself trampled into the ground,  
I`ll be happy to show you the way there. It`s YOUR funeral." snapped  
Meowth with a rather angry look on his feline face.  
  
The Tech smiled. "Well, one of you has an ounce of sense." he said,  
placing his briefcase on his car hood and opening it. It contained  
six pokeballs, three of which seemed perfectly normal, but the other  
three were strange models that the bumbling trio had never seen  
before.  
  
"What are THOSE?" Jessie asked.  
  
"I call these hyper balls. I upgraded some ultra balls using what  
I could remember from the Masterball prototype designs. It`s not  
perfect, but if my aim is good, it`s a sure capture every time."  
he explained as he picked one up and showed it to the red haired  
girl.  
  
"If they work so well, why do you say they`re not perfect?"   
wondered James.  
  
"Simple. If I miss, they explode like grenades. Think fast!!!" he  
replied, picking up another pokeball from his briefcase and tossing  
it swiftly in James` direction. The blue haired boy screamed in  
terror as he leapt forward to catch before it hit the ground,  
narrowly grabbing it by sliding over a yard on his stomach arms  
reaching forward.  
  
"Good catch, genius." said the Tech, laughing his head off. "My  
Snorlax almost came out of his ball."  
  
James fumed when he realized that the ball he had in his hands was  
nothing more than a regular pokeball.  
  
"You may not be half as incompetent as I heard." added the agent in  
black as he snatched up the ball irreverently after stashing the  
three empty hyper balls in his jacket pockets.  
  
* * *  
  
It took a while for Brock to get over his initial reaction when he  
saw the very cute bug trainer, but eventually he did get around to  
tell them a few useful tips on how to handle situations involving  
unknown species. He finally promised them that he`d be willing to  
help the professor study this new specie if they managed to capture  
a specimen, though not to take any stupid risks in doing so.  
  
"Okay, I guess we`re ready to go now. I really want to capture  
that Dragonix you saw." said Ash after turning off the videophone.  
  
"I think we have nothing left to do but go in that bug infested  
forest now." said Misty, shuddering at the thought of all the  
creepy crawlies she dreaded to see.  
  
"Just a sec!" said Juniper, sipping the last drop in her cup.  
  
"Isn`t that thing cold by now?" asked Ash.  
  
"It would be, if it was still the same cup you got me when I   
limped in." replied the bug trainer, laughing. "You really think  
I could go through the day on a SINGLE cup? That`s ridiculous,  
especially with the weak coffee you get in pokemon centers."  
  
"So, you`re ready now, I hope?" said Ash, looking decidedly  
impatient.  
  
"Of course I am." she said.  
  
Their pokemon were equally enthusiastic about this new adventure  
about to begin.  
  
"Pikachu!"  
  
"Beedrill!"  
  
"You guys think that these bozos who distracted the Dragonix for  
me will show up again? I mean, they got banged up pretty badly..."  
said Juniper.  
  
"Knowing them... it`s not a matter of IF, but rather of WHEN they  
show up." sighed Misty.  
  
"Let`s go. We have a long day ahead." said Ash with a smile.  
  
  
To be continued...  



End file.
